From gaining momentum to accelerating the 12-year commercial exploration of Baidu Post Bar

If we go back to 2003, no one can predict how much weight the Post Bar born in that year will occupy in Baidu’s territory. However, in the next 12 years, Baidu Post Bar has steadily and steadily become an important position with a huge number of users and occupying the only social product in Baidu’s entire product system. The various attempts of the business model of Post Bar can also be regarded as a microcosm of the commercialization exploration of China’s online social platform.

From the original forums, Blog, SNS, alumni records, Renren. com, and the rise of Weibo and WeChat in recent years, the wave of social platforms has changed. Many products that once resounded across the country can only survive or even disappear, but the post bar is enduring. The huge user scale, coupled with multi-dimensional and highly segmented groups such as interest, region and identity attributes, makes Post Bar with huge traffic and massive precipitation content become a "gold mine" with great potential.

But even with "the right time, the right place and the right people", Baidu Post Bar has always been alert and cautious, committed to finding the best balance between user experience and commercialization, and slowly carried out various attempts to adjust its own rhythm.

The commercial potential of the post bar detonated by the draft of Xiao He Lou Jiao twelve years ago

In 2003, as the forum (discussion area) began to gradually transfer from four portals to Tianya, Xici, Maopu and other websites, the concept of Blog was still in the initial stage of brewing. Baidu seized this good opportunity to create Baidu Post Bar, which not only enriched the content results of Baidu search engine, but also helped Post Bar quickly accumulate initial users with the help of the long tail effect of search.

During this period, the whole Internet form began to move from the 1.0 era of one-way communication to the 2.0 era of two-way interaction, and the interaction desire of young netizens that had been suppressed for a long time was stimulated intensively, and the product form of Baidu Post Bar just effectively filled this user demand, so it quickly gathered a very high platform popularity.

In 2005, the "Super Girl" draft held by Hunan Satellite TV showed people the power of fans, and also let Post Bar taste the dividend of fan culture. A large number of fans gathered in the super girls’ post bar and had a heated discussion for a long time. Alexa data at that time showed that with the help of Baidu Post Bar, Baidu’s traffic surpassed Sina in one fell swoop and became the largest Chinese website in the world. The first appearance of fan power made people inside and outside the industry smell the great commercial value lurking in Post Bar. However, because the online marketing model was relatively simple at that time, Post Bar did not rush to pursue profit speed, but put the depth of cultivating platform in the first place.

Leverage the Olympic Post Bar to test fan marketing.

Since 2008, the Internet in China has entered the golden age of rapid development. The surge in the number of netizens and the emergence of mobile Internet have spawned various online marketing models. Baidu Post Bar, which has a huge user scale and huge traffic advantages, has also begun to explore the diversified direction of commercialization.

During the Beijing Olympic Games, Baidu Post Bar cooperated with Adidas, Yili and other first-line brands to plan a series of marketing activities, and introduced the Olympic enthusiasm of netizens into the Post Bar. The marketing of this big event successfully attracted a large number of bar friends to participate.

In 2009, Baidu Lighthouse, the first interactive marketing product in China, was officially launched, focusing on tapping the precise marketing value of Post Bar.

In 2010, the launch of "Post Bar Mall" made it possible to realize social traffic. Props, value-added applications, personalized services, etc. made Post Bar earn C-end income, and at the same time, it greatly promoted the activity of Post Bar and improved the user system.

During the London Olympic Games in 2012, Baidu Post Bar became the main battlefield of online Olympic marketing. Taking Coca-Cola as an example, it selected 30 post bars including Sun Yang Bar, Chen Yibing Bar, Liu Xiang Bar and Gymnastics Bar, and posted in the selected post bars through official accounts to cheer for Olympic athletes, and naturally implanted interactive activities with specific themes to promote and solidify its brand. The promotion of Coca-Cola in the Post Bar has covered more than 10 million people, the brand has been displayed as high as 30 million times, and the video has been played 100,000 times. At that time, Weibo was in full swing, and some even declared it as "the pulse of the earth", but advertisers did not dare to ignore Baidu Post Bar. The deep interaction among users of Post Bar can quickly touch, transform and expand the fan base, forming an ecological closed loop of multi-directional, in-depth, efficient and self-growing fan marketing, which is the core advantage that Weibo platform does not have.

Looking back on the period from 2008 to 2013, it was the adolescence of Internet in China. The characteristics of active but restless users not only increased the commercialization opportunities, but also brought greater challenges to the realization of traffic. Fortunately, Baidu Post Bar’s several attempts have not only failed to drain users, but also gained great recognition, especially the cooperation activities during the two Olympic Games have become classic online marketing cases.

Force community fan marketing to dig deep into the value of post bar platform

2014 seems unremarkable, but there are two figures that make this year destined to go down in the history of Internet development in China.

In this year, Internet users in China approached half of the total population for the first time, and the scale of mobile phone users surpassed PC users for the first time. Because of this, the commercial focus of China has also shifted from offline to online, and enterprises have entered an era that needs in-depth communication with consumers. Some people therefore call 2014 the beginning of the Internet 3.0 era. In this context, the commercialization process of Baidu Post Bar began to rapidly enter the rising channel.

In July 2014, Baidu Post Bar announced the official launch of the enterprise platform strategy, and established a fan community for enterprises, institutions, media and other partners by opening the official post bar. This move attracted many powerful enterprises in the media, technology, finance and other industries to settle in. Mobile phone brands such as Meizu and Xiaomi regard the official bar as the most important marketing position.

For vertical industries with broader themes such as "beauty" and "education", Baidu launched the "Post Bar Partner" model in 2015, which opened the operation rights of vertical post bars to partners, provided more professional services for users of related bars, and also expanded its own profit model.

With the help of 100,000 stars and 300 million fans, Baidu Post Bar built the brand of Post Bar Entertainment, which quickly entered the film marketing industry in 2015, making Baidu Post Bar one of the most important film and television marketing platforms. The Nine-story Demon Tower with Ghost Blowing Lights jumped to glutinous rice through the related star bar header, and about 200,000 tickets were issued. Popular variety shows such as Running Man have been deeply interacting with fans in the post bar for a long time. IP-adapted writers of popular online literature such as "God of Heaven" and "Who’s Youth is Not Confused" have all held huge casting activities in their respective post bars, and achieved good results.

The longevity of post bar comes from the youthfulness of core users. According to the data, more than 60% of the 12-year-old Baidu Post Bar’s active users in 300 million months are post-90s. They grew up in the Internet age and are deep Internet users. Among them, 80% of users’ behaviors come from the mobile terminal. Post Bar users not only have strong spending power, but also are generally willing to accept new things. These user characteristics are the natural advantages of Post Bar itself. Throughout the commercialization process of Post Bar, every attempt is centered on the experience of these users, keeping up with the development trend of the Internet, and adapting to the changing rhythm of consumer behavior to the greatest extent. After a series of explorations, the gap between commercialization and users is gradually bridged by Post Bar.

For the Internet social platform, realizing traffic is both a paradise and a hell. If you are not careful, it will slide to the bottom. Along the way, Baidu Post Bar finally crossed the threshold of realizing with the mentality of taking the Long March. This year marks the 12th anniversary of Baidu Post Bar. In the traditional calendar of China, 12 years is the end of a cycle and a new beginning. As the Internet goes deeper and deeper into people’s lives, the prospect of achieving a win-win situation in products and business is more and more promising.